an american expat living in the netherlands

Mysteries of the Dutch Toilet

September 26, 20163 comments

I’ve been hiding something from you in my Dutch Home Tours. It is something that can be found in every Dutch home and I thought it warranted its very own blog post. The toilet! This post is going to be two fold – first I want to talk about birthday calendars, and second I want to mention the toilet itself. I know some of you out there have been waiting for a little toilet talk (Carmen!).

Most Dutch homes have a toilet (or half bath as we call them in the US) near the front entrance. More often than not, this toilet room will contain a birthday calendar, or verjaardagskalender.

Birthdays are kind of a big deal here…and its practically a sin to forget someones birthday. I will write more on that at a later date. So it makes sense that you would find a birthday calendar in the typical Dutch home somewhere. But why in the bathroom? Well the answer is simple and logical (how Dutch!). You use the toilet every day, and while you are just sitting there, a list of upcoming birthdays staring you right in the face is a pretty good reminder! This is also a good time to pull your phone out of your pocket, and set yourself a reminder to pick up a birthday card.

These are photos from various family members toilets by the way. As for us, we don’t have a real Birthday calendar yet, but I have this Rifle Paper Co. 2015 calendar that is so beautiful, and doesn’t have the days of the week listed, so I insist on using it in our half bath.

Onto the good part…the inspection shelf toilet! I mentioned this to a handful of people before we left Portland, and it always instilled shock and awe. In fact, we weren’t sure if we would be lucky enough to have them in our new home in Leiden or not. Most homes built prior to recent years have them, so we lucked out as our house was built in the mid 1980’s and we have two of them!

Here is one of our very own toilets for your viewing pleasure. As you can see, it has a little shelf where your poo rests before its final destination. The big drawback to these toilets is the fact that your “business” is basically in the open air and no Poo-Pourri can mask that smell. The best you can do is a curtesy flush right away. I believe “Flachspueler” is actually the German name for it, but it was the only illustration I could find on Google for you.

Just another new and exciting experience that awaits you if you decide to come to the Netherlands.

Mysteries of the Dutch Toilet was last modified: September 26th, 2016 by Keven van Zoen